11/25 Magic, the good, and the Bad?
Howdy, This may be rather long and I will add a few pictures afterwards.

Ok we live about 90 minutes from the port so we usually go over on saturday morning for our cruises. but this time we decided to go on Friday and spend the night at the Radisson.
We did meet 3 other cruise board people there which was great fun.

The hotel was very clean, the pool and courtyard were very nice and their lunches were worth the money and large portions.
However, breakfast and dinner you will be better off going to McDonalds or Zachery's right next door, unless you dont mind spending a lot for your meals.
Plus the beds were like a slab of concrete, at least in our room.
None of us got any rest all night.

But upon going outside we could stand by our car and see the smoke stacks of the Magic just beckoning us to come and get on ASAP!!! So we put on our bright lime green T-Shirts that our dis board group was wearing and left for the Magic.
The hotel was 4 minutes and 13 seconds from our hotel, so we arrived at 10:02 and went right in.

I stood right inside the door waiting for Dh to park the truck. While I waited I had 8 cruise board families stop and introduce themselves to me. I was so surprized they all knew who i was. We all posted pictures, but many didn't look like their pictures, i guess I did. That was so fun and exciting for me.

Finally we went in and got boarding pass #3 which was great. Before we knew it there was a sea of lime green shirts in the terminal all gathered together laughing and having a good time. We took pictures and chatted til time to board. Many of the ladies had tiaras on, i forgot mine but I guess that is just the way it goes sometimes.
soon they called numbers one and two so I quickly grabbed my bag and met my family and boarded the Magic, then quickly went up to the buffet where I discovered my camera was gone

I went to guest services but nobody had turned one in. Then they said I could go back into the terminal and board again with a proper security tag , so I talked with security and managed to get back through the crowds of hundreds of people going the other direction, but NO camera!! I did run into another cruise board member which was nice.

So back to the buffet, DH re assured me we would just buy another camera, but I kept thinking all my dis board family pictures were on it and cant be replaced, plus our meet would be over before shutters opened up to buy a camera.
Finally at 1:00 we were suppose to have an adult meet at Signals bar before our family meet at 3. I didnt really feel like visiting but as we walked by on deck 10 I waved to cruise board people there and Bob (AKA Tiggerking) held up my camera!!! He was my hero for the entire trip!! It had fallen out of my bag by his feet, but He couldnt catch me in the line to tell me.
THANKS AGAIN BOB !!!

By now it was time to check out our room with a navigators verandah,it was very nice and Bob and Lisa were our neighbors!!!

Now I am not going to go day by day or it would take a week to read this. I will now just hit the highlights of the cruise.

Our dis board meet in the Promenade lounge was AWESOME!!! we counted 63 of us. we did manage to get one picture of all of us and hopefully Bob will post it soon for all of us to see. we had a gift exchange for Christmas too.
It was so much fun to meet everyone after all the months of chatting on the cruise meets thread. We were called the wild turkeys and dancing banana heads. A very CRAZY, FUN group!!!

We had our own musical group which should be hitting the top ten soon on the charts!! They were called Tiara Bob and the Dreamboats!! They sang at Karoake while we all cheered and waved!!!! They had their own groupies!!!

I thought they did GREAT considering they had never sang together until then, in fact they had never met before the cruise either. That was really fun.

Ok, it did sprinkle enough they had to move the sail away party inside, so I didnt go. I have gone before inside and didnt care for it. I know they dont have much to work with in the atrium and they do the best they can.

After dinner we went to the tree lighting ceremony. It was fun and everyone was singing along and started to cheer as the characters threw pixie dust on the tree to light it up!! But then it was so quiet you wouldnt believe it, we all just stood and starred at the tree which didnt light up and the snow didnt come Slowly we all shuffled off to do our own thing. Very disappointing for all. But these things do happen.

All the shows were great. Lynn Trefzger a ventriliquoist was great !!! Very funny!! John Charles also performed and was great. Some of you who may of gone to WDW a few years ago and saw the Golden Horse shoe revue will recognize him as the singing sheriff in that show. Rich Purpura and Taylor Mason another Ventriloquest came later in the week.
The stage shows are always very good.

Ok, now for the band, Ntwine. I hate to say it but they were terrible!! They were off key several times and the songs they sang were apropriate for 16 to 25 year olds, which would be ok, accept in the clubs the average age was 45, most were older and didnt relate to any of the songs.

We went into the club when they were performing and only 4 people were there, but as the cabaret show time was getting close the club would fill up and then empty out pretty good after it was over,so when they performed it was pretty well empty.
I do give the an A+ for effort but a D- for talent and and F for their selection of songs. They were not right for the audience they had. People all around us just shook their heads in disbelief that Disney would hire someone so bad and I agreee, i was very shocked.
They did connect with the little kids who danced in the Promenade lounge in the evenings, but in the clubs they really didnt have any rapor with the adults. They tired but just wernt right for the crowd, I did feel sorry for them.

They also sang in place of the steel drum band by the pools. It was the same problems. I really missed the steel drum band. The Caribbean music really set the mood for the cruise. After all we are on a Caribbean cruise, so why not the steel drum band to play???
So pretty much one band was breaking down into duos and trios and performing for all the music venues all week long. That was the BAD part of the cruise. After 13 cruises , this is the only time I have posted a bad report like this on a band, they usually have much better talent on board.

Enough of that complaining now, we did have great weather on the islands. Warm enough for shorts most of the time, however we did get a sprinkle at St. Johns. We did the island tour there and saw 7 beautiful beaches and a couple sugar mills. It was a very good tour and a beautiful island to see. Very clean island.

St. Maartin we did a tour that was bus and ferry boat to Marigot for shopping. The excursion was very nice and relaxing, The entertainer on the boat part was excellant. I told DH Disney should of hired him to sing . He was very funny too.

CC had been predicted showers but we had clear blue skies and around 85 by afternoon. water was great!!
Bill even had a sting ray come up to him on the adult beach while wading around, it was his first encounter with one. AWESOME!!!
we had lunch at Serenity Bay because they had steaks there as well as burgers!!! YUMMY!!!

One night we tried out Topsiders for dinner and it was excellant and very quiet. Greg had a porterhouse steak which melted in his mouth. He has had many steaks over the years, but he said that was the BEST Porterhouse he has ever had.

All the dinners were great, but the choices of sugar free desserts was tiny and Dh didnt care for most of them, so Jeevan (head server) asked the chef to prepare some sugar free brownies for Dh which were great !! Thanks Jeevan.

Thursday night was the dessert buffet, which you can't possibly describe with words, the site alone will drive you crazy if your into desserts!!!! It is a must do, especially the chocolate fountain. AWESOME!!!

The ship was beautifully decorated for the holidays, so was CC. I loved the gingerbread house. They were still decorating it the first couple days of the cruise. it smelled heavenly!!!

Captain reception for repeat cruisers. Ok I cant comapare it to the way it use to be because I had never gone to it. We decided we should go this time to see what it was like. i had read about the cutbacks and changes, so we wanted to see for ourselves.

With having nothing to compare it to, i thought it was ok. You got to meet some of the staff and officers on board, and had a trivia part to fill out which helped you to get aquainted, plus you got to keep the pens you wrote with. There was coffee, pop and punch, cookies and mickey shaped rice krispy squares too that had the ears dipped in chocolate.
The Captain gave a short talk and then some kids got to draw out tickets to win a prize. It was a clock in a 5x4 inch silver metal block with clock in the center and DCL logo on it.
Very nice. It was cute, one little girl actually drew out her own name. There was no way she could of seen it so she got to keep the prize, which was good. Then they called my name, I was shocked to say the least. There were about a dozen cruise board people sitting together and they all cheered and called my name as I went up to get my prize.

Pirate night was alot of fun, but it didnt go as smoothly as on past cruises for us. The traffic was heavy so our excursion got us back to the ship at 5:57 and our dinner was at 6:00. so I dashed and threw on my costume and then discovered that our safe wouldnt lock, so I called to get it fixed(2 nd time this cruise) Ok, everyone else had gone to pirates dinner while I sat and waited for maintenance to show up. Too much stuff to just leave it open.
It was 8 before he came and fixed it. dinner was over .

So I just walked around, because the time to get pictures with captain jack was gone too!! Plus I could really feel my cold setting in and I had almost lost my voice. I did see may dis people in great outfits as I wondered around. Then it was party time!! It was a lot of fun, just before the fireworks I zipped own on deck 4 to watch them in all the quiet my head needed by this point. They were great!!!
I did look at the buffet but we didnt go to it. It looked great!!

We did all the usual stuff, like art of entertaining series, trivia a few times, ice carving,karoake and we made a gingerbread house too. Remmeber if your going to do the gingerbread house building you must sign up for it at guest services.
There are only 2 times they do it and it is limited space each time. I would strongly suggest you go the first day to sign up if you going during the Christmas season to insure you get to do this. Plus you cant bring it home, you either eat it or throw it away or give it away because Customs wont let you bring it off the ship.

some movies playing were Santa Claus3, De Ja vue, the Guardian, The Prestige, cars, POC dead man chest, and a few others which I cant remember right now, there were 11 movies in all.

we did have rough seas for a couple of days. The Captain announced that it was 20 foot waves even though the TV said 13 foot. He said the stabilizers didnt do any good since the waves were hitting us broadside instead of head on, That is why we were rockin and rolling so much. I loved it, it was fun and made it easy to sleep. However I did feel bad for those who got ill. The dining rooms were pretty empty a couple of nights.

We dont like the new format for the Navigators. too hard to figure out what is happening. Hope they will bring back the old style someday.

We did roam every hallway looking for door signs and saw some awesome ones. Way to go everyone!!!

One thing we have never had happen before was one day they delivered 2 gift certificates from the Spa manager for Rainforest treatments for both of us. I think they might of been trying yo be extra nice since I am the one who started the letters coming about the changes in entertainments on this board. We didnt get to use them, but we did appreciate the gift.
Plus right after we got in our room the Manager of house keeping came to us and introduced herself and wanted to make sure everything was perfect in our room, and she said to call her if we had any problems at all.

If anyone has had either of these things happen to them I would appreciate you telling me. I am still trying to figure it out. They couldnt tell me why the gift certificates were given to us when I asked??

so basically we did have a great time, due a lot to the other cruise board people we kept running into all week long, You guys were AWESOME!!!!

I know there is a lot I didnt write about, but feel free to ask any questions and I will try to answer. I did bring home all my navigators so I can look things up if I need to.